In 2020, an advanced Terminator, the Rev-9, is sent back in time to Mexico City to murder Dani Ramos, while cybernetically enhanced soldier Grace is sent from 2042 to protect her.

The Rev-9, using its ability to split into its cybernetic endoskeleton and shape-shifting liquid metal exterior, pursues the trio, killing Diego and cornering Grace and Dani.

After learning how his actions affected Sarah and being able to detect the location of temporal displacements, Carl began to forewarn her of them to give her a purpose to make amends.

[26] Terminator Genisys was produced by Skydance founder David Ellison and was released in 2015, but its disappointing box-office performance stalled the development of the planned trilogy.

They included Charles H. Eglee, David S. Goyer and his writing partner Justin Rhodes and Josh Friedman, creator of the television series Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles.

[66] Linda Hamilton was somewhat shocked by the decision to kill John Connor, which she believed would upset a lot of fans, but she also said she wanted the film series and its characters to evolve.

[112][113][41] Miller said the film is rated R because "the fans kind of demanded it, in a way", saying that "the DNA of Terminator" is an R-rated movie and that "to not do it R feels disingenuous to the source material".

[127] Approximately seven freeway locations in Spain had been considered before settling on the final choice,[123] consisting of new roads leading to the then-unopened Región de Murcia International Airport.

Miller said it was not meant as a social commentary or political statement on immigrant issues related to the border,[34][38][137] stating that the scene was "just a natural evolution of the story".

[144] At one point late in production, Miller considered placing the opening scene later in the film, when Sarah is in the motel room explaining John's death to Grace and Dani.

However, Miller said this structure "really changed a whole lot of stuff in a negative way" and he ultimately decided to keep it as an opening scene, in order to start the film off by shocking the audience.

[146] The visual effects were provided by Industrial Light & Magic (ILM) and Scanline VFX, supervised by Alex Wang, David Seager, Arek Komorowski.

[118] ILM's visual effects supervisor, Jeff White, said a lot of work went into the scene to ensure that the characters' faces looked realistic and had the same likenesses as Terminator 2.

[150] After seeing the digital head shots, Schwarzenegger provided guidance to the ILM team, which made subtle adjustments to perfect his character's facial movements.

[155] Holkenborg recreated Brad Fiedel's original "Terminator" theme while also introducing Latino elements to reflect the ethnicity of Dani Ramos.

[186] In the United States and Canada, Dark Fate was released at the same time as Harriet, Arctic Dogs and Motherless Brooklyn and was initially projected to gross $40–47 million from 4,086 theaters in its opening weekend.

The website's consensus reads: "Terminator: Dark Fate represents a significant upgrade over its immediate predecessors, even if it lacks the thrilling firepower of the franchise's best installments.

[51] The Hollywood Reporter wrote that critics overall seemed "cautiously excited about Dark Fate, although there's a certain awkwardness about seeing repeated recommendations that it is 'easily the third-best' movie in the series".

"[53] Joe Morgenstern of The Wall Street Journal gave the film a negative review, describing it as "cobbled together by dunces in a last-ditch effort to wring revenue from a moribund concept.

"[199] Christy Lemire of RogerEbert.com gave Dark Fate two out of four stars, arguing that it suffered from "empty fanservice" and that Hamilton "deserves better" as does her supporting female cast.

[201] Tasha Robinson of The Verge stated that some combat sequences "are staged clearly and cleanly", while others "are packed with CGI blurs and muddy action and are hard to follow in even the most basic 'who's where, and are they dead?'

And when Dark Fate does deign to explain what's going on, it delivers its exposition in a self-important, hushed, clumsy way, as if audiences should be astonished by the most basic plot revelations.

"[203] Richard Roeper of the Chicago Sun-Times awarded the film two stars out of four, calling it a "boring retread" and "so derivative of Judgment Day", although he welcomed the return of Linda Hamilton, praised an "impressively effective" Mackenzie Davis and the "winning screen presence" of Natalia Reyes.

[209][210] Fred Hawson of News.ABS-CBN.com wrote that "deciding to lose John Connor early on in this one made the emotional heart of the first two classic Terminator films stop beating as well.

"[213] Matt Goldberg of Collider felt the opening did irreparable damage to the legacy of Terminator 2 by rendering it pointless: "Every sequel since has diminished the ending of Judgment Day because the story 'needs' to continue (because studios like money and can't leave well enough alone).

[222] Terminator: Dark Fate received three Saturn Award nominations for Best Science Fiction Film, Best Supporting Actress (for Hamilton) and Best Special Effects in 2021.

[235] Alex Avard of Empire found the quality of Terminator games to be inconsistent, but wrote that Dark Fate – Defiance, with its "tightly designed" gameplay, "may have just helped to raise that historically low bar a little bit higher.

[41][59][60][239] In October 2019, Cameron said that sequels to Terminator: Dark Fate would further explore the relationship between humans and artificial intelligence, while stating that a resolution between the two feuding sides would be the ultimate outcome.

"[37] Hamilton said in October 2019 that she would probably reprise her role for a sequel,[242] although she joked that she would fake her own death to avoid appearing in it, saying that making Terminator: Dark Fate "really was hard" because of the physical training she had to undergo.

[246] Later in December, Davis went on to reveal that the seventh film would not have been a sequel to Dark Fate, but a spin-off focusing on an alternate timeline version of Grace set in the future war similar to Terminator Salvation and would not have featured Schwarzenegger.